


Potential

by MellytheHun



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 5+1, Another tumblr fic prompt, M/M, No Smut, Prompt Fic, Some Cursing, also it's an au, it's like, it's not exactly a wrong cab AU?, just a shitty cab AU, shy!Derek, sterek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-12
Updated: 2014-09-12
Packaged: 2018-02-17 03:44:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2295482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MellytheHun/pseuds/MellytheHun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An anon on Tumblr asked me for a 'got in the wrong cab AU' and I wrote a 5 +1 that isn't that prompt, because I am terrible 100% of the time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Potential

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Türkçe available: [Potential](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8404201) by [ilayda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilayda/pseuds/ilayda)



Derek stops the cab and a lanky boy climbs in. He straightens his beanie a little and says,

"Madison Square Garden, please."

Derek nods after a glance in the rearview mirror and starts down the street.

"Ew. That sounds so weird. Like, I was asking for water in a restaurant or something. And — that bothers me. I hate that. Like, if you're out for food, get something other than water. You can get water from the tap. People that order water with dinner are terrible people that shouldn't be trusted and shouldn't be taken out for dinner. Can we do that over? Ask me where I'm going."

Derek's brow furrows and he clears his throat awkwardly (since it's the first thing he's said all day, considering no passengers ever engage in conversation willingly).

He makes eye contact with the boy through his rearview mirror again and asks,

"Uh… where to?"

"Madison Square Garden."

Derek just nods again and looks back to the congested street before he hears the boy sigh in frustration and say,

"No. I don't like that either. It's so impersonal. Like, 'Madison Square Garden, dickwad, don't you know?' and I am _so_ not like that. Okay — wait — ask me again."

Derek gives him a strange expression through the mirror and the boy just rolls his hands, to say, 'go on,' and so Derek sighs and asks,

"Where to?"

"Madison Square Garden… uh… pal? Oh, God," the boy groans, falling back against the seat, "This is ridiculous. Hey — what's your name?"

"…I'm Derek."

"Okay. Let's try this again."

Derek looks over his shoulder briefly to express how unbelievable he thinks this conversation is, but the boy looks adamant and determined. Derek's face is disbelieving and at least 20% annoyed confusion, but he just sighs and asks _again_ ,

"Where to?"

"Madison Square Garden, Derek!"

There's a blissful pause.

Then more aggravated noises.

"Ugh!" The boy exclaims, "What am I, five? That was worse. I regret it. I regret everything. Yonder, Derek! To Madison Square Garden! No. Could you please take me to Madison Square Garden, Derek? No, that sounds pitiful."

"You don't have to use my name?" Derek offers helplessly, entirely unprepared for this interaction.

The boy makes a noise like 'pfft' and whines, "No, no, no - now that I have your name I _have_ to use it."

Derek shrugs while the boy grimaces and mumbles more, increasingly strange ways to ask for the same ride to himself.

Then he asks, "Do you have a cool title, maybe? Like, Officer? Captain? Professor? Oooh, are you a professor? You look like you could be a professor. Like, PhD kinda dude."

"If I were a professor, do you think I'd be driving this cab?"

"Different strokes for different folks, dude. I'm not here to judge."

Derek delivers him quickly to the garden and feels strangely happy to hear the boy say, "Thanks for the lift, Derek," before leaving his cab.

* * *

"420 East 54th Street," a familiar voice orders, getting into his cab from the bright daylight.

"You got it," Derek mumbles mostly to himself, half hoping that the boy won't recognize him.

"Oh, hey! It's you!"

No such luck.

"Well, I've definitely never been anyone else."

Derek starts a little at the boisterous laughter the boy erupts with.

"Dude, that was funny!"

Derek knows it wasn't funny, but he isn't about to start arguing with the guy. He's kind of weird.

"Aren't you curious as to why I'm going to 420 East 54th Street, _Derek_?" The young man asks, waggling his eyebrows at Derek in the rearview.

He should never give his name out.

"Uhm. No."

"Nonsense, Derek, I'm _glad_ to tell you! I happen to have a job interview, which, if I land it, would mean no longer sleeping on my friends' couches! Which, look, is super cool of my friends and all, but living out of a suitcase gets real old, real quick, lemme tell ya. Like, that must be what people who travel a lot feel like. No home. Nomad. Goin' Nomad. Like Sons of Anarchy. Except, instead of guns and drugs and sex, I have like, thirty-two bucks in my checking account, like five boxes of poptarts to last me as lunch for the next month and no sex. You travel a lot, Derek? You look like you travel a lot. Or you did, maybe. Seen some stuff. Done some things. Done some stuff. Seen some things. You like air travel? You know, I've never been on a plane? I don't know, society has sucked the magic out of it. Like, people are all 'oh, I have a layover in fuckin' wherever and I have to stand in lines and blah, blah, blah' like you aren't getting to fucking fly through the goddamn sky like a bird."

Derek has no idea what to do with that amount of information. He decides it's best if he lets it go and doesn't say anything.

The young man leaves his cab after paying and says, "Thanks for the ride, Derek, wish me luck!"

And later that day, when Derek's picking up a bunch of tailored suits from Wall Street, he does. He hopes the guy's interview went well. Hopes he won't have to crash on couches too much longer. Hopes good luck comes his way.

* * *

"Whoa, Stiles — wait," A young man's voice chuckles, getting pushed into the cab.

Derek smells the alcohol before the door closes and the young man he's picked up before — Stiles, apparently — giggles drunkenly. He gasps in pleasant surprise and smacks his friend in the shoulder, slurring,

"Dude, it's Derek!"

"Who's Derek?"

"This guy!"

"The cab driver?"

"Yes, the cab driver!"

Derek wonders if he can still kick them out.

"Why do you know his name?"

"Are you fucking kidding me? Derek is the coolest cabbie in the fuckin' city. In the fuckin' world, Scott."

Derek chuckles a little at that, his entire body bubbling in a little, shy warmth he hasn't felt for a long time. Scott, the drunk friend, looks at Derek in the rearview appraisingly and says with faux snobbery,

"Oh! Is that so?"

"It - that - fuckin' is so. Yes. Yes is what that meant."

Scott hiccups and asks, "What makes him so great?"

"Uhhhh, I dunno, Scott, maybe that he can get anyone anywhere within five minutes? It's like fuckin' dark magic. And you shouldn't talk to him that way, Derek's a very richly travelled, well-educated man."

"I'm not —"

"Oh- _ho_!" Scott exclaims sarcastically, "Well, _now_ I'm impressed."

"You fuckin' _should_ be. He's been to India. To teach poor kids. And stuff. He's a doctor. He's seen stuff. He likes planes. He's a pilot also."

"Wait — what — can you just tell me where to take you guys?" Derek stammers, realizing he will not be able to stop the bulldozer of inaccurate rumors in his own cab.

"Hotel Pennsylvania, Derek — that's right, the fancy-shmancy hotel because my honorary brother here is splurging for a night because he has been _promoted_ and we're having the first celebratory sleepover we've had in like _three years_."

"That's not… really a long time, considering you're at least twenty-one."

"Dude doesn't get sleepovers," Scott mumbles, closing his eyes and leaning back into the seat, "Shitty doctor."

Derek takes offense for half a second before he remembers that he is, in fact, not a doctor. He gets the cab in motion and when they arrive at Hotel Pennsylvania within five minutes, Scott points at him and says,

"You're alright, Derek."

Derek helps them both out of the cab and to the doors without hesitating and Stiles looks at him with glossy, gleaming eyes and says,

"I got the job — last week. You totes wished me good luck, didn't you?"

"Get sleep. Stiles."

Stiles' beautiful eyes widen and soften and sparkle like Chinese lanterns at the sound of his name. He smiles so sincerely it sends tingles up and down Derek's body from his head to toes.

"You know my name," Stiles says so dreamily it may have been meant to stay in his head.

"Don't do anything stupid for the rest of the night," Derek encourages dryly.

He lets go of Stiles' arm that he had a gentle grip on and goes back to the cab. He wonders when this weird thing will end.

There are literally millions of people in New York and he keeps managing to pick up this one fucking kid. What are the odds?

* * *

Very good, apparently.

"Dude, we have _got_ to stop meeting like this."

Derek drops his chin to his chest for a brief moment, gathering his patience as he realizes Stiles is getting into the front seat.

"Yo, man, you okay?"

"Been a long day."

"Gotchya," Stiles says, "I'll go easy on you, Big Guy. Gotta get myself to Little Italy."

"Alright," Derek replies and gets started on the road.

Stiles fidgets a lot and asks abnormally softly,

"Was it a long day, or a long and bad day?"

"Just long. Nothing I can complain about. Just a lot of people. Rude people."

"How can anyone be rude to you? You're literally the nicest cabbie I've ever met. You're so cool."

Derek smiles meekly and it makes Stiles smile. Turns out that Stiles' smile is even more charming when it's sober. Stiles chuckles to himself and says,

"Oh, man, I'm just hoping I don't have to pee on arrival. Have you ever had that happen? Like, you're totally fine and you're thinking, 'gee, anyone else would be nervous in this situation,' and then you get into it and all you can think about is how full your bladder suddenly is? Like, it's so bad all of a sudden that you start tensing your thighs, like that's gonna stop you from pissing yourself?"

Derek smirks and makes a turn, "I actually know that exact feeling."

A quite beat passes, then Stiles starts in again.

"Well, since you're so insatiably curious about my life, I'll tell you - I'm off to meet a potential new client. New potential client? The client is not a client of ours yet. But could be. So they are new. And also potential. Not potentially new. And not newly potential. Potential. Po-ten-chell. Potential. It's starting to sound like a made-up word, I've been saying it too much. Is that right? Is there another way of saying potential? Potent? That doesn't make sense."

"I don't think your ranting is unusual, Stiles," Derek says and he doesn't fail to notice how Stiles' eyes sparkle at being called by name, "I do think, though, that you have what people usually refer to as their _inner_ monologue right out in the open."

"That is absolutely true. Although, if someone is talking at length to themselves, it's more of a soliloquy than a monologue. The monologue would be outer. Soliloquy would be inner. Kind of. I love that word. Soliloquy. Don't you like that word? It just rolls off the tongue. _Soliloquy_."

Derek chuckles and when Stiles leaves his cab, the day suddenly feels filled with promise. Potential, even.

* * *

"Oh, fuck, thank God it's you," Stiles sniffles, tears brimming his eyes.

Derek's heart lurches as Stiles gets into the passenger seat. He exhales hard and it sounds wet and tired and he mumbles, "Anywhere — anywhere."

Derek takes the cue and starts driving. It's a few minutes before Stiles starts muttering things about an on-and-off again relationship and how it's permanently and forever off, then a few minutes of crying loudly about how unfair life is and how desperate he is to feel fulfilled and respected. He shouts about how insensitive Scott is being about this break-up (how Stiles should've seen this coming) and how indifferent Lydia is acting about it (she just mentioned she knows someone new in town Stiles might be interested in) and how it's making the break up harder and how intense their fights would get and while he's gesticulating broadly about it all, Derek shuts off the meter.

For four hours, Stiles cries violently and squirms in his seat, throwing his arms around and kicking his legs when he'd be hit with a wave of frustration. He uses words like 'loathe,' 'selfish,' and 'liar,' and phrases like 'total disregard for my feelings,' and 'never respected me.' Stiles eventually calms down and sniffles a little, then admits,

"I feel like I'm doomed. Like I'm always going to be alone. Who in their right mind would want to be around someone like me?"

Derek looks over to Stiles, appreciates his beauty even now, swollen under-eyes and pink nose and pouty lips in the twinkling city lights. Derek knows he probably looks angry (his sister says he always does, but it's his resting face and he can't help it), but he says with conviction,

"Not a lot of people."

Stiles quirks a brow at him and he continues, "Not a lot of people in the world deserve a human like you in their lives."

Stiles' eyes go wide and soft like they did when he was drunk and Derek's heart thuds at it.

"You're incredible, Stiles," Derek begins, "Out of a city of _millions_ of people, _you're_ the face and voice I remember. I could pick you out with my eyes closed. You're an individual. You're separate from the rest, you go against the grain. And almost no one in the world knows how to appreciate something as phenomenal and awe-inspiring as that. Not everyone is gonna get it. Most people, in fact. Most people won't get it. And good riddance to them. Weed out the people that can't have you, that don't deserve you and eliminate them. Surround yourself with good people — like you. You're the kind of guy that makes the world work for him. You can have it. You can have it all, I mean it. Anything you want. And you should only spend time with other people that truly believe that too."

Stiles stares in a little bit of awe for a few moments until he utters, "That's the most words you've ever said to me."

Derek smirks and Stiles smiles weakly. He adds, "You're the greatest, Derek."

He leans over and hugs Derek and Derek hits the brake and lets go of the wheel to turn and hug him back.

When he drops Stiles at his friend's apartment complex, Stiles asks how much that trip cost him. Derek shakes his head and shoos him away from the cab. Stiles is reluctant to let the matter go, but Derek insists upon it. Stiles runs to the driver's side just to hug him again and Derek goes to bed that night, wondering about how Stiles is doing. Hoping someone is watching him rest, petting through his messy hair, putting a good blanket over him.

He knows that minute that he's in too deep.

* * *

"So, then Alan says to me — "

"Wait," Derek interrupts, spotting someone.

"It's your lunch break!" Laura objects.

"Yeah," Derek rolls his eyes, "which I'm spending driving you around for free. Plus, this is important."

Laura looks genuinely offended when she asks, "What could _possibly_ be more important than me and my trivial office gossip?"

The cab pulls up to the corner where Stiles is bundled up in a sweater, a peacoat and beanie, trying to keep warm. Stiles goes to open the front seat, then sees it's taken and looks sad to be getting into the backseat. He sighs as soon as he gets in the heat of the cab. He smiles at Derek and says,

"Hey, Derek, thanks!"

"Who is this?" Laura asks.

"Yeah — who stole my seat?" Stiles inquires.

Laura turns her head with sprung eyebrows and then looks at Derek suspiciously. He answers,

"The woman in your seat is my older sister, Laura. Laura, this is Stiles."

"And what, pray tell, is a Stiles?"

Stiles turns his cold nose up in a way that Derek shamefully thinks is _cute_ and answers her, "Stiles is a very cold graphic designer who is _best friends_ with Derek."

Laura snorts and, still looking at Derek in surprise, asks, "Is that so?"

"We're only friends under the guise that I'm a doctor, professor and pilot who is very well travelled and educated."

Stiles laughs and replies, "You are literally my favorite."

"Favorite what? Cabbie? Professor? Pilot?" Derek asks, keeping Stiles' gaze through the rearview mirror.

"Person. You're literally my favorite person."

Laura doesn't fail to notice the red tint to Derek's ears and cheeks and she knows it's not from the momentary cold that the open door caused. Derek drives Stiles to his work office and declines the cash offered to him. He shrugs when Stiles asks why he's covering it and he just says,

"It's a short ride. Don't sweat it."

Stiles smiles beautifully at him and it's what he lives for. It gives him a high unlike anything else. He can feel Laura's intrigue clouding the cab. When Stiles steps out, he gets distracted petting ten different dogs being handled by a professional walker. While Derek is staring at Stiles being cute, Laura teases,

"Ooooh, you have got it _bad_."

"I know," He replies grimly.

"Well?" Laura starts, "Ask him out!"

"He isn — "

"No, no, blah, blah, blah, blah, I'm Derek, I'm negative about everything. Ask him."

"Laura — "

"He is _into_ you," She intervenes.

"How could you possibly know that?" Derek's voice nearly cracks.

"Derek!" She shouts angrily, "Ask him out right now!"

"Right now?" Derek asks sarcastically.

"Now." She nods, "Immediately."

Derek scowls at her and says disbelievingly, "No."

She scowls back in a challenge and rolls down her window. She shouts loudly,

"Hey! Stiles!"

"No! Laura, shut the fucking window!" Derek curses.

Stiles turns to look at her and she yells,

"Derek is too much of a fucking coward to ask you out for coffee! You interested?"

Stiles' whole face goes bright red and Derek wonders if this is an appropriate situation to use his licensed weapon for. Laura smirks evilly at him and he glares daggers at her.

"Y-yeah! I am _so_ okay with that. _More_ than okay. _Very_ okay, in fact. The _most_ okay. With coffee. With Derek."

Laura winks at him, then looks to Derek and asks,

"Now, wasn't that simple?"

"You are a tyrant."

"You worship me," She dismisses as she starts rummaging through her pocketbook, "Now give me one of your cards so I can give it to him. Here's a pen — write your cell on the back of it."

When she hands Stiles the card, he looks a little dazed and wondrous. He smiles at Derek again and says,

"I'll, uh — I'll text you."

"Good, yeah."

Stiles goes into the building and as Derek pulls away from the curb and Laura starts rolling up the window again, Stiles pops back outside and yells,

"BUT DON'T TEXT ME BACK WHILE YOU'RE DRIVING. THAT'S UNSAFE. I HAVE SEEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO MODERATELY GOOD PEOPLE. LYDIA ALWAYS SAYS, SAFETY FIRST, DICK LATER. NOT THAT — FUCK — I DIDN'T MEAN — I MEAN, IF YOU WANT SOME, I AM ALL ABOUT THAT, I JUST DIDN'T MEAN TO ASSUME YOU WANT ANY, OR LIKE, THAT'S ALL YOU'RE AFTER, OR SOMETHING, CAUSE YOU ARE A REALLY COOL GUY — "

Laura barks a booming laugh and looks to Derek's red, confused face and says,

"Oh — this one. I _like_ this one."


End file.
